The invention relates to fiber optic switches.
Typically, in the fabrication of dense Nxc3x97N switches, two Nxc3x97N switch cores or fabrics are required for redundancy. In each switch core, a signal emanating from an incoming fiber is split and return paths are recombined. Such switching may be implemented with individual switching mechanisms, which select desired paths. As overall switch core size (i.e., the value N) continues to increase, so too does the number of individual switching mechanisms that must be packaged in a single port unit.
In one aspect of the invention, a fiber optic switch assembly includes a first strip arrangement of deflecting mirrors and a second opposing strip arrangement of deflecting mirrors, the deflecting mirrors in the first and second strip arrangements being configured to operate together to form a plurality of switches.
Embodiments of the invention include one or more of the following features.
Ones of the deflecting mirrors in each strip each can receive an optical beam and provide the optical beam to a selected one of N of the deflecting mirrors in the opposing strip.
Among the advantages of the present invention are the following. The interleaving of 1xc3x97N switches provides for a very compact arrangement, thus reducing the overall packaging size of a switch assembly. Such a compact arrangement is of particular interest for fiber optical switching applications that require that many switches be packaged as a single unit.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent from the following detailed description and from the claims.